Then the dust settled. The clock stopped. The compass lay on the floor in two pieces. And Lena stood alone in the train station, the tape still stuck to her hand, the word still warm on her tongue.
Lena felt a hand on her shoulder. Not cold. Not skeletal. Just a hand, warm and familiar, smelling of woodsmoke and the rosemary soap her mother used. ninitre
“Tell them what?”
Lena knew her mother’s handwriting like she knew her own heartbeat. The loop of the n , the sharp t , the r that leaned too far left. But the word itself was a stranger. Not English. Not French, though Mira had taught her some. Not the bits of Latin that sometimes floated through their kitchen. Then the dust settled
“Ninitre.”
“Where are you?” Lena asked.
Inside, the air tasted different. Cold, but not stale. Like the air in a cave that opens to somewhere else. Dust motes hung motionless in the slats of light from the broken roof. And on the far wall, written in the same brown tape, was another word. And Lena stood alone in the train station,